A Most Easie Way of Acquiring Spirit of Salt Together With the Salt Mirabile.

R. of common salt two parts, dissolve it in a sufficient quantity of common water; pour A upon the solution; put the mixture into a glass Body, or a glass Retort well coated, or else into an earthen Body or Retort. If a Body, set on an Head, and begin to destil with Fire of sand, encreasing your Fire gradually; with the first heat comes off the unsavory Phlegm, which gather apart; when the Liquor comes forth sowrish, change your Receiver and receive the sowre spirit: Continue the operation till no more spirits will arise, then let out the Fire, and permit the Vessel to stand in sand till all is cooled, when cold, take it out, and if it be unbroke, fill it again with the aforesaid matter, and proceed as we taught: The Phlegm is not to be cast away, but must be kept, that in it may be dissolved Salt (because it is better than common water) for another destillation. Thus from every pound of salt you will have lb. 1 of the best and most pure spirit. Dissolve the salt remaining in the Body or Retort (if neither be broke) in Water, filter and evaporate the Water, let it crystallize, the Crystals will be white, endowed with wonderful Virtues, to be declared here following.

Like prodigal spiders, perhaps. Facing stiff competition from ungrateful imitators with more capital, my business failed. I must confess that I sank into depression and in a fit of melancholy shot myself in 1806.

By 1810, French soda plants were making 15,000 tons of soda per year. Meanwhile, back in England there was a stiff salt tax which discouraged the black ash process from hopping the Channel, but the salt tax was repealed in 1823.

Largely subsuming the chamber acid industry, Leblanc soda would become the foundation of a diversified chemical industry with products that included sulfuric and hydrochloric acids, soda, lime, salt cake (Glauber's salt), and caustic soda. Growing from scattered factories to immense complexes, soda manufacturers would, by the end of the nineteenth century, introduce such modern innovations as toxic waste dumps, water pollution, and acid rain. This pollution would create a climate of government regulation which would force manufacturers to find markets for former waste products. Eventually these new chemicals would become even more profitable than the original ones, leading to another round of industrial growth and rendering the word chemical synonymous with the word poison in the popular culture. But I am getting ahead of myself.